Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
When my eldest was young she saw me creating a D&D character and wanted to make one as well. This was back in D&D 3.5 days. So I asked her what she wanted her character to do. She replied with a multitude of things pulled from stories and fairytales.So, it seems that WoTC design philosophy is very much going in the direction of letting players do whatever they want in creation of their characters.
None of them fit a class. Classes inherently aren't "let players do what they want", they are focusing players into specific niches. More than that, in D&D they are making sure it's a team game that you need others to be able to do the full gamut of abilities.
So we went through this list, and two of the most important ones were "change into a cat" and "heal people". Ah HA, a druid. So we tossed all the rest of what she wanted and focused on druid. Then we got to ability scores. I explained what each was, and she said that she wanted a low wisdom because her character has little common sense and was super impulsive, and a high dexterity "like Peter Parker". That always stuck with me - not like Spider-man, like Peter. But we can't build this character and have it be all that viable. Wisdom is the prime ability score for druids, so much was based on it. And the Dex we could do, but would just get ignored while shape changed.
What I learned from this is that there are a very large number of fetters and limitations inherent in the foundation of the system that I didn't see anymore because I had been playing for years and had internalized it.
There's some nod to letting players do what they want in terms of the details in this 2024 playtest document. But the major constraints are still in place. It's like if there was only one brand of car with one sporty coup, one minivan, and an SUV. Sure you can pick what color you want it, and if you get the enhanced sound system, but really those are minor choices and you are locked into the coup, the minivan or the SUV - they control the big choices and how they fit together.
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